


Adrift

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Homesickness, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 03:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: “If I didn’t know any better,” his colleague said, later when he’d listened to Stephen’s stories about life on board a man-of-war, about the splinters and burns and head-wounds along with the usual diseases that plagued men who worked themselves to the bone and did not have ready access to fresh food. “I’d think you were a sailor’s wife.”





	Adrift

There was plenty of fresh water available on the island, which was a certain luxury to Dr. Maturin after so many years spent aboard various naval vessels.

“I think I may have left some part of myself on the ship,” Stephen joked to a colleague while scrubbing the blood off his hands, glad to be of assistance in this tiny hospital on this rock of an island. He changed his shirt, leaving the other in a tin tub filled with cold water, not because it disgusted him, but because he could already see Jack’s expression of horror in his mind’s eyes if he’d show up in a shirt like that on the ship.

Stephen had spent the last few days while Jack’s gone making grumbling noises at his patients and delighted noises at the rare birds and insects he’d been able to study out in nature. The weather was cool enough so that he could wander freely without worrying about a heatstroke so long as he had his straw hat on and his good spyglass.

And yet he found himself gazing at the horizon in the evenings before the sun set, exhausted from the day’s work but unable to rest. He found himself listening for the sound of wood creaking or waves crashing at night when sleep would not come. It was not quite that he had started humming sea shanties underneath his breath, but instead it was the music he played with Jack when their friendship was as new as a freshly minted coin.

The days passed without the presence of the large group of people needed to make a ship function properly, without shouts and bells and the thud of a hundred feet on wood planks. In a way, a ship was its own little world, and now he had left it.

“If I didn’t know any better,” his colleague said, later when he’d listened to Stephen’s stories about life on board a man-of-war, about the splinters and burns and head-wounds along with the usual diseases that plagued men who worked themselves to the bone and did not have ready access to fresh food. “I’d think you were a sailor’s wife.”

“What?” Stephen had asked, stilling his fidgety hands. He looked at the missing nails and tried to ignore how much his fine motor function became more prominent as the years passed. He thought of Jack grasping his hand in his own, of their shared duets, of how he wondered if he was developing some kind of heart condition sometimes when Jack was being particularly daring.

“Well,” his colleague said. “You are, for a lack of a better word, as I understand it, the Captains most beloved person on that boat and you hum ‘Heart of Oak’ to the injured British sailors while you are operating on them.”

“It calms them down,” Stephen argued. “They love that song.”

“I’m sure it does,” his colleague said. “They have a soft spot for you, I’m told.”

Stephen wanted to tell him that pretty much every single Navy officer and sailor he’d ever come across had reacted to him in the same manner. He’d always chalked it up to the fact that the was a physician and people liked to know that he knew his way around a medical bag in contrast to a former butcher in the possession of some sharpened knives and a strong stomach.

Not that he hadn’t heard them telling each other “that’s Lucky Jack’s own Doctor Maturin, that is!” and others replying with displays of relief or sometimes, low cheers.

“You are leaving soon, doctor?” the patients would ask, as he bled them and mixed medicines.

“The Captain will be back soon,” he’d reply, making sure that their medicine tasted horrible so that they knew that it was real medicine and not just something ineffective. “I’ve stocked up on bandages and such.”

“It’ll be good to be home, eh?” most of them had said, nodding.

“Indeed,” he said, closing his leather bag, thinking of Jack’s huge grin and easy touches, the way the enthusiastic midshipmen hurried around and tried to learn all kinds of navigation at the same time and the comfort of waking up in his own bed to the smell of coffee every day.

The sailors never asked him if he was going to London or Ireland. Instead the asked about Jack’s ship and the crew, accepting that he was a man of medicine and not a naval man when he’d fumble when he tried to use naval jargon.

Perhaps, in another life, this was what he spent all his time doing.

But not this one.

It was a relief to see Jack’s sunburned face, even if being lifted off the ground when he’d embraced him was less so.  Especially as he’d hidden a few mice in his pockets.

“Let’s get you home, love,” Jack said, steering him towards the harbor with the easy grace of a man who had been doing a task for years. Still, there was a mischievous twinkle in Jack’s eyes, as if he had just managed to grab a valuable prize in a very clever manner.

“Alright, then,” Stephen heard himself reply, leaning into Jack as much as he would allow himself. “That sounds like a good plan.”

And so they hurried towards the ship, so in tune with each other that their every movement mirrored the other.


End file.
